


Seeing the Worst in People

by roguefaerie



Category: Jessica Jones (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Character Study, Episode: s01e01 Pilot, Escapism, Gen, It's For a Case, Private Investigators, References to Depression, Season/Series 01, Yuletide, Yuletide 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-17 22:09:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21750517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roguefaerie/pseuds/roguefaerie
Summary: Seeing the worst in people, being right about it, and needing them anyway. Putting the bourbon down and saving an innocent, maybe at Jessica's own expense.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 10
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Seeing the Worst in People

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kameiko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kameiko/gifts).



There are only so many people see Jessica when she’s falling down drunk. It just happens that the year everything starts happening again, that number comes perilously close to going up. 

There’s Hogarth, of course, with her closet full of secrets and the one she thinks she’s holding over Jessica--her methods. Hogarth’s own dirty deeds really have nothing to do with closets and everything to do with the shadiest things a lawyer can be.

They’re both beyond the pale, the two of them, and when they’re alone in their separate homes--Jessica’s apartment and Hogarth’s gass castle of sorts, they both know that.

And then there’s Trish. Easy enough to avoid as a billboard on the side of the bus. 

Jessica’s never known where she’s fit with either of them, and Trish can say all the right things and make herself out to be--

\--well--

Trish is a victim in some ways, but it’s a surreal kind of life, surrounded by so _much_ but both of them knowing it’s all poisoned by falsehood and bad intentions. Jessica doesn’t know how Trish does it any more than Trish seems to understand why Jessica would drink.

Maybe some of these people could understand why Jess would drink, if they really thought about it.

The truth is Trish probably thinks about it when she’s able to focus outside of her personal nightmare, but there are a lot of people who only know how to express concern in all the wrong ways and that’s the deal--that’s Jessica’s lot to deal with in every way possible.

She didn’t expect that it would ever get worse than dead parents and fighting Kilgrave off once. But then, if it didn’t, that wouldn’t make much sense in Jessica’s world either, would it?

For Jessica, everything is always a living nightmare. Hell come back yet again to stare her in the face. 

***

When shit hits the fan as it inevitably does, it’s not just memories of mind control, but the knowledge, coming all in a rush, that all of it is on the table again. Down to the very last excruciating details. A reenactment of all of Jessica’s most terrifying moments, all catalogued and reshaped to show her exactly how much Kilgrave had enjoyed them.

It makes the idea of being blackout drunk seem easy, simple, warm, and dark.

She’s ready for it every night, and most mornings, and yet she can’t be off her game now. There’s a whole new crop of girls Kilgrave can choose from if he’s back in the city. ( _He’ll choose Jessica_.)

She rattles off street names and makes it home for long enough to have a panic attack in the bathroom but leave her bourbon in the house for later. It’s been less than twelve hours since she realized this was her life--again--now. She’s got a college student to track down who doesn’t deserve any of this, not a second of the sick game cooked up for her by the worst kind of villain Jessica’s ever faced.

When this is over she’s going to need everyone she’s ever managed to get in her corner despite herself--Malcolm, Trish, even Jeri, or the neat freak bartender even. Maybe even him.

She’s going to need them all.

***

PI skills, such as they are, have a limited use if you don’t--if you can’t--stay calm. Street signs whizz by in her field of vision as she counts, grounding herself in the things she knows--her parents are dead, died in a car crash, and her life is a freak accident stamped with the name Jessica.

Compared to everything that came before, being stuck in the Walker household almost doesn’t register, except for the times it does and it briefly passes through her mind that she really does owe Trish so much. Still, she’ll never make a big deal out of it, make it more than it really was. She was an opportunity for Dorothy Walker, a PR stunt just like her very own flesh and blood daughter.

It hasn’t been easy. But somehow, one day at a time, it’s been survivable. Somehow no matter how many times she tries to be black out drunk and never come back, it ends up that she does. That she does. 

Maybe it’s just the world playing a sick joke, or maybe, in the back of her mind she's always been right and it’s him. Maybe he has even more power than she ever thought he did. 

She’ll know one day. She’s got her chance now. She’ll either save the girl he’s dangling in front of her right now, and put herself back in his path--or she'll fail. But failure is not an option, not when it comes to the lives of other people. She feels the adrenaline start to surge and she reminds herself she may be the one he’s signaling but a college student is bait. She’s got to let it all get finished. She’s got to bring Hope home. 

She knows him like the back of her hand so she’ll do it on her own. Her clients aren’t the usual type, haven’t done more than lost their daughter and Jessica does have the best chance of bringing her home whether she’s being set up or not. 

She’ll do it. And then she’ll drink like hell, and Malcolm will let himself in her apartment again and help in the ways he can, despite everything. 

She doesn’t know all of the twists and turns. She certainly isn’t worrying about Trish, or letting herself think too hard about the bartender. 

Jessica can’t waste time on anything right now. She’s got a job to do.

She’s got a young woman to save from the depraved mind controlling villain of her own past. A college student already slated for a fate worse than death: Waking up every morning after Kilgrave.

Jessica knows exactly how bad it can really be, all the little ways that he plays with his food.

He’s already playing with her.

Jessica’s phone rings, and she lets it go to voicemail. She can let the people who can barely stand her see her fall apart later. She’s already got the taste of her next drink in her mouth, but no one but Kilgrave is around the corner right now.


End file.
